Time, People
I have more time. It’s been a busy few months. Hell, It’s been a busy 20 years.
I can’t remember the last time I’ve had time. I’m trying to adjust. I know it seems like a good problem to have but you don’t have my head. I know there’s a big shift in my responsibilities and by choice I’m moving into a new period of my life but it’s an adjustment. I realized that where I am at is familiar. I’ve been here before. Most of my adult life, actually.
It’s where I lived.
Since I got out of college and committed to comedy it was all about getting by. Not just getting by to get by but getting by with a higher purpose. Comedy. Sacrificing a career path and stability. I wasn’t interested in that. Years of getting by. Days and weeks of being on the edge of broke and just walking around with a notebook. Sitting in coffee shops, hanging out at guitar stores, record stores, book stores, diners, talking to guys on my hang out route. Emotional ups and downs. Psychological ups and downs. All in service of the notebook and waiting to get on stage. Sometimes once, twice a week. For 5 or 10 minutes. That was the life.
Once I started to work as a comic the time was still there. Waiting for gigs. Driving to gigs. Getting low on money. Getting by.
How I spend my time is my process. It just doesn’t look like it's a process. It looks like aggravated boredom and self-loathing, waiting for something to come to write down and then get it up on the stage.
That’s the creative life.
It’s weird, all those years, I never thought of it as practice. It was my life—think, write, stage.
Now I’m back in it. The time. Without the podcast soon. Some acting, comedy, music, focusing on trying to put a movie together.
I’ve been practicing with a band. I’m playing a lot of guitar. I’ve always played but I just kind of get by with it. Now, I want to get better. Learn how not to choke on stage, relax. Feel confident about it. Practice. Play with people. Learn new things.
It’s strange to live a life singularly committed to one thing. One creative thing. It never felt like practice, it just felt like my life, being all-in on my creative pursuit.
Now, all of sudden, there are things I want to do creatively that I really don’t know how to do and I’m not really comfortable with. I guess it was the same with acting.
Being willing to fail, which actually is the essence of doing stand up, is always hard because it’s inevitable when you do new things with your creativity.
I guess that’s what all the time is for. Preparing to fail but taking the risk. Practice.
That’s the life.
Today I talk to Mark Hamill about his life and not a lot about Luke Skywalker. On Thursday, a good friend of mine and long time friend of the show Tom Scharpling is back again, for the last time. Great week.
Enjoy!
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!
Love,
Maron
